Ulf Ekman (born 8 December 1950 in Gothenburg) is a Swedish charismatic pastor and founder of the charismatic church Livets Ord (Word of Life), which brought the Word of Faith movement to Sweden.
Ekman became a Christian shortly before graduating from high school in 1970. He studied ethnography, history and theology at Uppsala University and in January 1979 was ordained in the Swedish Lutheran Church, returning to Uppsala University to work as the chaplain for several years. He studied for a year at Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA and upon his return to Uppsala in 1983 founded Livets Ord. He remained pastor of the church until passing on the pastorship to Robert Ekh in 2002 to focus on international work, though he recently took up the position again. He also founded Livets Ord University and Word of Life Bible School.
Through his church he has sent missionaries to Bangladesh, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Albania, Israel and India. Word of Life is also the host for the annual Christian event "Europe Conference." In the former USSR he started to preach in pentecostal churches and in stadiums. In Riga, Latvia he worked closely with Aleksej Ledyaev and the "New Generation Church" where he is a pastor. In almost every big city of the former USSR a Word of Life Church and a New Generation Church was established. The number of people reached with the Gospel can be estimated to be between 250,000—500,000 people. Cooperation with New Generation Church ended in March 2004 in doctrinal disagreement.
In the charismatic church world, Ulf Ekman is considered to be mentor, spiritual father, and pastor of pastors. Rev. Kong Hee has claimed Ulf Ekman to be his spiritual coach, and during the years they have had a close relationship.
As many new Christian movements, Word of Life has been criticized by other Christians, but in particular by the media. Many critics claims that Word of Life's teachings about health and economic abundance created a survival of the fittest attitude, in opposition to the Christian ascetic ideal of being poor and humble. Ekman himself and Word of Life has always responded to this criticism by saying that they strongly believe in God's promises in the Bible. Ekman claims that a false image has been created in the Swedish media of Word of Life as being against, for example, disabled persons, when the outspoken message was that God promises deliverance from sickness.
Ekman's theology, along with other representatives of the Word of Faith movement, has been criticized of having gnostic elements. A thesis written by Kent Gunnarsson at Umeå University, published 2004, had this claim. The opponent at the dissertation, Professor Alexander Radler, criticized Gunnarsson's for a too wide definition of Gnosticism. Radler appreciated Gunnarsson's thesis for its rich information about modern Gnosticism, but thought that Ekman's teachings can't be seen as gnostic. Ekman's own attitude against Gnosticism is outspokenly negative.
Today Ekman rarely preaches the typical Word of Faith teachings. He has partially criticized them, for example the Jesus Died Spiritually doctrine, but also has written and said that the ground for his preaching is the revelation in the word of God he got from first listening to bible teachers like Kenneth Copeland, and later studying at Kenneth Hagin's bible school in Tulsa.
Ekman now seems to have broadened his doctrinal horizons with studies in patristic and church history. He has now an ecumenical approach to other congregations. In 2006 the archbishop of the Catholic Church in Sweden Anders Arborelius was invited to World of Life church in Uppsala for a public discussion. Through the Livets Ord University, which is a branch of the Oral Roberts University, Ekman publishes a theological magazine called Keryx, containing articles from a broad, classical Christian point of view. This magazine has articles from different Christian traditions and exerts from patristic writings. But a critical analysis of the Word of Faith movement's own teachings hasn’t been published to this day.
